Michi Tanaka's Arrival: Stay Focused

The wind rolled lazily by, gently wafting against the leaves on the trees. It was hot, as summer was approaching in North Dakota, and Michi Tanaka sighed, heaving her duffle bag onto her shoulder and mentally preparing for what she anticipated to be the hardest years of her life. She had worked hard for this moment, and unfortunately reaped none of the rewards.

I've wasted so much time practicing, and my skills haven't improved, Michi thought. I can only hope that this school will give me the kind of help I obviously need to hone my gift.

She sighed again and wiped her arm across her forehead, succeeding more in spreading around the sweat there than wiping it away. She began to walk quickly and purposefully toward the front doors of Beata Academy. The sun somehow seemed a bit less oppressive then, and instead began to feel warm.

"This is a new beginning," Michi whispered quietly. "And I have to make the best of it."

A tall boy sat close to the water fountain, a pencil in his hand and a pair of thick gloves lay beside him. He had been working on them lately, and needed to try them out, but he needed the practice more than anything. He smiled as he passed his old record. five minutes and thirty seconds. A large grin covered his face, but quickly went away as the pencil was replaced with a powerful acid. He pulled his hand away as the acid started to burn into his skin. He quickly dipped his hand into the fountain, and looked back at what was left on the floor. He let out a large sigh and looked around. boring as always.

Michi was intent on reaching the front doors before stopping due to a pain in her foot. She had been passing by the fountain when she started feeling a burning sensation near her heel, and so turned on it to jump up and pull her shoe off.

"Ow, what the—?"

But as she turned to look back to where she had stepped, there was a puddle of liquid on the ground that for all intents and purposes seemed to be eating away at the concrete.

"Acid?" she said.

And when she looked up, a tall man was sitting by the fountain, the only thing with him being a pair of enormous gloves. Michi was confused. Were these the kind of powers people at this school had? Powers over chemicals? Powers to injure people with acid?

He slowly turned to the girl, a confused look on his face. "Oh, are you new here?" he asked as he ignored her question. He picked up the gloves and slid them on, one glove harder to put on because of the water on his hands. He picked himself up, and sauntered over to her, holding out a glove covered hand. "Hey there, my name is Grant. Would you mind telling me your name? He asked the smaller girl. There wasn't much of a height difference, but he liked being taller than her. For some reason, it made him feel... Happy? Excited? It was somewhere in between those two emotions. Maybe it was because he had a feeling of superiority, just because he was taller.

She watched as the boy approached her after pulling his gloves on and then asked if she was new, completely ignoring her actual question. She cocked an eyebrow before gingerly reaching out to shake his hand.

These are the hands that made that acid, I'm sure. Is attending school here going to be actually dangerous?

"My name's Michi," she responded slowly. "Michi Tanaka. And yes, I'm new." She pulled her hand out of his to attend to her shoe, re-lacing it onto her foot, noticing quite clearly the chunk of its heel that had been eaten away at. "And your name?"

Wait, didn't he already give her his name? Oh, she wants to know my full name. He scratched the back of his head, his grin fading to a small smile. "Ah, Grant Damaskus Trojemo. Nice to meet you Michi." Something about her last name didn't seem right. "Huh, so... Are you by any chance Japanese? Sorry if that sounded weird or anything." He was sure of it, she seemed like she might be Japanese, he couldn't think of her being anything else.

"Oh, I was just waiting for cute girls like you to come by." he said joking. He felt weird after he said that. "I was just training. I kind of need to be by water." If he just met someone and they said something like that, he wouldn't know how to feel. He would try to avoid that person, but that's it. Maybe she would avoid him. "Anyways, If you have any questions, just ask me. I'll need to show you the dorms soon. So far it's you me and Regina!" he said excitedly.

Michi grimaced a little at his "cute girls like you" comment. He made a face like he might have felt a little weird too. Though she liked the idea of someone who was as dedicated to their training as she was. Perhaps it was too early to say, but maybe they could help each other?

"I like to spend as much time training as I can too," she told him. She tried to smile to make it seem genuine, but worried about it coming off forced. She'd never been good at making friends after spending so much of her free time practicing her gift, but having an accountability partner could never be bad.

Then she realized what he said about the dorms. And who was Regina?

"Um, did you say dorms? Are you a tour guide?" Michi asked. "And, uh, who's Regina?"

Grant shook his head. he'd like to think of himself as a tour guide, but sadly, he wasn't. "No, I'm a student. Anyways, The initiate dorms. We stay there for a week, then we take a test to see which guild we get put into." After that he quickly added "I hope we get to be in the same guild." he felt like such a nerd saying guild, but that's what they called them. "Mhm. Regina, I'd say she's probably 6'2? She had the power to break and heal bones." he held his right hand up and said "I learned it the hard way."

"Are you saying this Regina girl broke your hand?" Michi asked. Thoughts starting rushing quickly through her head. Am I constantly going to be in danger here? Is every student a threat? How do I know which students are friendly? "Do I want to meet this person?" she asked. "And why am I getting the impression that the students here are constantly endangering each other?"

((Thanks for replying to this post initially, as it's my first, and I'm just starting to get into roleplaying! You seem like a lot of fun, and I look forward to continuing this tomorrow and in the future, but I just wanted to let you know that I'm off to bed so that you aren't confused when I don't reply!))

OOC: It's okay. You're actually pretty talented, i'm so jelly. And now you get a compliment next time you post.

IC: "N-No. She's not a bad person! I'm sure she didn't mean to do it. I mean, her powers just went off and stuff!" He tried to think of something to convince her that this school was safe. "Oh! The only other person I met has the power to manipulate machines! That's not very harmful!" He was trying, but felt like he was failing. "Please believe me." he thought of something. Hope it works. "If you don't, when you fall asleep i'll put acid in your throat." Oh god, that was worst. He backed up, a confused look on his face.

His speech nervously sped up, as he gave a few different reasons why she shouldn't be afraid of Beata. He started talking about how he was sure Regina didn't mean to do it, and how the only other student he's met here so far has technology-based powers and that isn't dangerous! But then he threatened to put acid in her throat if she didn't believe him.

Michi cringed a bit, stepping backwards too as she pulled her duffle bag over her shoulder again. What is up with this guy?

Grant sat down, and put his head in his hands. "Why does this keep happening?" he whispered to himself. "It's the same as usual. Something weird slips out, and they think I'm insane or something." He would say that to people to make them avoid him, but this time it just slipped out. He didn't even mean it. "Bye." He said trying to keep his voice clear. He reached into his pocked and pulled out a bag of pencils. He took a pencil, and put the bag back. He took one thick glove off, then returned to his training.

"And I thought I had wanted to leave the school so soon!" Regina said with a chuckle. "Sorry, I couldn't help but overhear your conversation." She hadn't failed to hear Grant's rambling about how the students here were safe (not including the part about herself though) and gave a little look of pity seeing as he'd now successfully driven off a student on their first day. "He means well, honest! Just stumbles a bit," the tall teenage girl said with a shrug, "we all do..." She lowered her eyes to the floor now, burying one hand in her pocket and letting the other rub up and down the opposite arm.